Images of War: US Infantry Weapons of the Second World War, Michael Green

Images of War: US Infantry Weapons of the Second World War, Michael Green

This book covers a wide range of weapons, split into three general categories - individual weapons, crew served weapons and infantry support weapons. The first part looks at weapons including pistols, rifles, sub-machine guns. The section on crew served weapons focuses on the heavier machine guns that required more than one man to operate. The final chapter covers the widest range of topics, including anti-tank guns, bazookas, recoilless rifles, flamethrowers, mortars, infantry support artillery (those that served with Infantry Divisions) and the various armoured vehicles that fought with US Marine Corps divisions.

The book is nicely organised. Each chapter begins with a lengthy introduction that examines each of the weapon types, the various weapons that fell into each category, looking at their technical development and use in combat. This is followed by the photo section, with each picture supported by a useful caption (not simply repeated text from the introduction). Although there are some combat pictures, the focus is on pictures that clearly show the weapon in question, including some of museum pieces where that gets a better picture. The focus is on those weapons that were used in sizable quantities, although several more obscure weapons do get a mention.

This is a well organised visual guide to the impressively wide range of weapons used by US army and marine infantrymen during the Second World War, and gives an idea of just how complex warfare became during the Second World War.